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An anonymous reader writes with some discouraging news for hack-oriented purchasers of the new Droid X phone: "If the eFuse fails to verify [the firmware information (what we call ROMS), the kernel information, and the bootloader version], then the eFuse receives a command to 'blow the fuse' or 'trip the fuse.' This results in the booting process becoming corrupted, followed by a permanent bricking of the phone. This FailSafe is activated anytime the bootloader is tampered with or any of the above three parts of the phone has been tampered with."

That particular quotation was taken directly from here [mydroidworld.com].

While “trip” is not the correct word to use in correlation to a fuse, this isn’t really a fuse [wikipedia.org] – it’s on-chip circuitry:

If certain sub-systems fail, or are taking too long to respond, or are consuming too much power, the chip can instantly change its behavior by 'blowing' an eFUSE. This process does not physically destroy the eFUSE, so it is reversible and repeatable, using JTAG programming.

As such (IMHO, at least), “trip” actually does seem to be a fairly acceptable word for this action.

In case you hadn't noticed, this is a technology site where a large number of people are dedicated to "fucking with stupid shit" on a regular basis. So talking about modding your phone is kind of right up the proverbial alley here...

Not true. When you buy the phone, liquidated damages (something called an "Early Termination Fee") gets tacked on if you don't complete the contract. It's your property the moment the credit card gets swiped through the reader or the cash goes in the register.

By law, if you request that your phone's SIM-lock (if GSM) be removed, or that you be given its MSL code (if it's CDMA), the phone company MUST give it to you as long as 30 days have elapsed since purchase. I'm not 100% sure, but I think even the 30-day waiting period can be eliminated if you waive your right to cancel the plan or return the phone.

American phone companies (at least Verizon and AT&T by virtue of being AT&T's offspring) aren't allowed to keep the phones as secured assets or lease them due to the consent decree that broke up AT&T's monopoly 25 years ago that prohibited them from forcing customers to lease phones instead of purchase them from independent sources on their own. I'm not sure, but I think the FCC incorporated its terms directly into its own regulations, so they probably apply to Sprint & T-Mobile as well. On the other hand, that might be the reason why Verizon was grudgingly forced to open its network to any phone you can physically figure out how to make work, while Sprint can get away with refusing to let anyone use any phone not purchased from Sprint.

I believe the first cell phone companies tried to lease phones to customers, but were prohibited from doing so by the FCC out of concern that if carriers were allowed to lease phones, the price of purchased phones would be wildly inflated and customers would be forced into leasing anyway. As a practical matter, subsidies turned out the same way (in the US, at least, though Google's fought the hard fight to at least try and change it a little).

Sure they will... But I don't appreciate having them try to transform it more into a rental of the device than a sale- and then framing it in as a sale. I'm sure there's other people that'll view it the same way as I.

Sadly, I'm fairly sure Verizon asked Moto to do this- they always seem to find a way to miss the point and try to assert "control" over everything.

Sadly, I'm fairly sure Verizon asked Moto to do this- they always seem to find a way to miss the point and try to assert "control" over everything.

Remember Verizon's "open network" imitative that was announced in 2008? Two years ago -- so where's my market for open non-branded devices that I can use on the Verizon Network? Surely they didn't make that announcement just to forestall regulation and maintain their walled garden, right?

There's a reason AT&T lost their little lawsuit over the "There's a Map For That" ad campaign that Verizon ran.There's a reason I don't use AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile- I use the "slower" 3G in more places than the others offer.

Since that's the case, I can't very well use an OpenMoko phone until someone makes a CDMA one and then Verizon decides to honor their publicly stated commitment for an "Open Network" that allows me to bring that phone over to their network. I can't as readily take the access hit for the things I do with the phone and go to another network that I could use an OpenMoko phone on.

A hardware company actually put a self-destruct mechanism in the phone when you change the software.

A. This will get tripped accidentally, even for naive users, and will cost owners money to fix.B. This violates the idea of ownership of the device. Motorola figures that they're licensing you parts, not selling. For an "open" OS, this is insane.C. Once you get around it, unless you can destroy the code, you still have that thing hanging around. A mistake or bad combination later on could trip it -- there's no reason to have to put up with walking through a minefield.

All this translates to "Spread the news, blacklist the phone, send a message to Motorola." Because if this goes on as a "who cares" thing, all Motorola Android phones will have it in future and other companies will follow suit.

This needs to be a black eye for Motorola, they need to notice that, and they need to quickly backpedal.

Apparently this is blown out of proportion:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/15/reality-check-modding-the-droid-x-may-not-lead-to-a-bricked-phone/ [boygeniusreport.com]
"This breaking news may not be as dire as many are claiming, as a google search of OMAP3 and e-fuse reveals that current OMPA handset already have e-fuse in place as part of the M-Shield hardware security technology built into TI’s OMAP system on a chip. It is on the very hackable DROID and the not-so-hacking-friendly Milestone, but it is not being used by Motorola to lock the bootloader of the handset. "
etc...

The latest in car theft prevention! Guarantees to never ever have your car stolen again, and with a little luck you too can kill the motherfuckers touching your car!!!
* May lead to loss of automotive transportation, groceries, pets, children and any other items still in the car.

More importantly, after an airbag blows, if you want to, you could just shove the airbag out of the way and continue driving the car indefinitely. You can also replace that part (and only that part) without gutting and replacing the entire inside of the car.

By contrast, if an eFuse destroys itself, your whole phone is bricked, and can only be repaired by replacing the entire phone, or at least its main board.

An airbag is solely for safety, whereas a phone is a phone, and that single component is supposedly solely for "safety". If the phone were perfectly functional without it (albeit less "safe", then that would be fine. It's not. Therefore, an airbag and an eFuse are not comparable. Simple as that.

Designing self-destructing hardware should be illegal. Fundamentally, designing a device to deliberately damage itself is no different than deliberately designing a laptop to fail a few months after the warranty expires. It is selling a customer a product that you know to be fundamentally defective because you deliberately made it so, and doing this without remorse. Unless clearly labeled with "This hardware may destroy itself at any time", that's false advertising and fraud for starters.

The worst thing is that if they are building this in to detect firmware hacking now, what's to stop them from using it for something else in the future? Oh, you installed a ringtone that isn't approved. Say goodbye to your phone. Oh, you visited a website that is used by movie pirates (despite not being able to do anything significant there with your phone). We don't like that, either. Pop. Living in China? You received a phone call from a suspected dissident or went to a website that the government considers dodgy. We're killing your phone. And so on.

And what's to stop a virus from attacking the phone and simultaneously killing millions of these things worldwide on the same day? This is a glorified land mine, and we all have heard the statistics about how many tens of thousands of people are killed or maimed every year by those. Adding a feature like this into a product borders on suicidally stupid, and I really hope it blows up in their faces as soon as possible just so I can say, "I told you so."

It's about the principle of it. You've long since stopped buying a merely a cellular phone and moved on to buying something akin to a hand held computer. Yeah, your on their network, but you own the phone. Your not leasing it, your not renting it. You slapped down several hundred dollars of your money for something that you can't modify to your liking.

If tomorrow Dell came out with a new line of computers that prevented you from putting your Linux distribution of choice on it by zeroing out the bios and the bootloader so it was rendered unbootable the fury would be cataclysmic. Even though 99 percent of the people who buy computers don't change the operating system.

It's not even clear if this information is real. TFA [mobilecrunch.com] links to a forum post [mydroidworld.com] which doesn't seem to actually contain a source of the information (the OP states it's a mix of "hard information" and "conjecture"). Said forum post then links to the eFUSE wikipedia [wikipedia.org] article, which lists Droid X as having an implementation of eFUSE. However, if you look at the Droid X wikipedia page linked to from there, you'll see the original mobilecrunch.com is what is cited for the eFUSE inclusion bit.

I'm not saying there is something fishy going on, but this could easily not be true.

In fact the "eFUSE" feature is present in a staggeringly common component [stevenbird.info] in many different Android (and other...) devices, so the presence of an eFUSE is not in any way demonstrative of the functionality claimed.

I've worked with security systems and I can definitely say that the guy who wrote that post doesn't know what he's talking about. I've hever heard of "resettable" eFUSEs. He keeps talking about eFUSEs as if they had some kind of power to control or supervise the boot procedure, which is bollocks - eFUSEs are storage elements, you need some kind of boot ROM to make use of the data and make decisions. And you don't "write programs in JTAG". Until someone writes something technically coherent about this issue, I'd take all of this with a huge grain of salt.

eFUSEs can indeed be used for this kind of self-destruct-on-tamper behavior, but honestly I would be very surprised if it were actually implemented this way on a retail handset. Deliberately designing brickage into a unit is just a bad idea overall (except for security devices, e.g. HSMs and smartcards).

This is the exact same conversation that takes place regarding the iPhone closed platform - Somebody lists some restrictions they don't approve of and somebody else says "So? Don't buy one if you don't like it!" This misses the point entirely. The proper response to seemingly arbitrary restrictions on my (hypothetical) device is to not buy one, and then tell other folks who might be interested *why* I chose not to buy one. A handful of lost sales probably won't be noticed on a popular device, but some lost sales coupled with as much bad press as we can make might force some change. We first have Apple placing arbitrary restrictions on their device, now the primary competitor is doing the same - How many times does this story need to repeat itself until we're out of options?

That's actually pretty much even with other smartphones in its class. The trouble is, most carriers(at least in the US); subsidize handsets but don't offer less expensive plans to those who BYO hardware...

If there were a "zOMG Free Phone* *(with $$$$/month contract)" option and a "Pay full retail phone price, or bring your own, $$/month for voice/data" option, the American preference for crippled carrier phones would be an example of the "stupid consumers, only looking at upfront costs" phenomenon. As it is, though, you pretty much choose between getting a subsidized phone, then having the subsidy(and some extra) gouged out month by month, or you pay full price, and then face exactly the same monthly costs. This adds up to paying a fairly major premium to purchase your own device.

Baseband firmware's separate from Android. Nobody else locks it down like that, and if Moto was so worried about fiddling with the baseband, then burn it into an non-writable ROM chip. The eFuse is watching for any modifications to the OS Kernel and Bootloader, the "computer bits."

In most Qualcomm processors (The MSM series used in most smartphones/PDA phones), there are dual ARM cores. This isn't a "dual core" system in the traditional sense, the cores are NOT identical and one is designed to handle radio functions and one is designed to handle application functions. On every phone I've seen, the radio is very well protected and the application side far less so. (Which is why, for example, WinMo phones tend to be "SuperCID" unlocked long before they get SIM-unlocked.) The dual-CPU nature makes this kind of protection approach (one side heavily protected, one far less so) much easier than trying to protect only certain code within a single CPU.

However, the Droid X apparently uses a TI OMAP. I'm not sure if these have the same dual-core architecture that the Qualcomm MSMs do. For this reason it may be much harder to be confident about locking down the radio side to enforce SIMlocks and FCC rules without locking down the application side too.

Seriously, I can understand your warranty being voided if you do unapproved modifications to a device, but designing the device so it blows up if you try to modify it is just wrong.

Why do hardware companies think they should have the right to own the device forever? Why should I buy a device that has a time bomb built in that may trip if the official software gets corrupted due to a bug?

The whole thing reeks. I'm done with Motorola. What is the point of this exactly? What does Motorola lose by you running a custom ROM? New phone sales when they decide after a year not to provide any Android updates?

This is just another nail in the coffin for Motorola, who becomes more and more irrelevant every year, being pushed out of the market on both sides by Apple and HTC.

HTC makes the most robust and moddable phones on the planet, and do not try to stop the modding in any way - in fact one may say they passively encourage it.

This post is coming from someone who owns a 4 year old HTC Vogue that came shipped with Windows mobile 6.0, but thanks to the modders, has been upgraded to 6.1 and 6.5, and more recently ove rthe past 3 months, has been running a fully working version of Android that is lightning fast. All on 4 year old hardware.

This is what can be done when you don't shut out your customers - I am an HTC purchaser for life now.

As if this will make any difference to the masses?Please nobody will care about this. If it mattered Verizon wouldn't have any customers at all since it has a long history of locking down phones are removing functionality.This just isn't on most users radar.

Its designed obsolescence. I learned this the hard way with my Samsung behold II, Samsung wants you to buy a new phone, and tries hard to lock you out of self updates so that the only option you have is to buy a new piece of hardware. The market has designed itself in such a way that its business model is dependent on people buying a new device every 2 years. If they let you openly hack your phone they cut into their bottom line. Hopefully the new players like HTC that are a bit more open will help chan

If I purchase the phone outright, wouldn't this be willful destruction of property on Motorola's part? Does a company have the right to destroy a purchased product - after the sale - if the consumer doesn't use it in a prescribed manner?

Everything of this nature is legal, until it's brought before a court of law. Are you willing to put in years of stress and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to file a suit against a Telecom giant that might reward you the cost of the phone? I don't think I would be, and companies like Motorola count on the fact that most people aren't.

So you take them to small claims court, where in many jurisdictions lawyers are not permitted. Motorola will have to send a corporate officer to represent the company. A much more likely outcome is that they'll settle with you prior to the hearing. All it takes is a few people to do this, and then blog about it and/or post info on social networking sites. Suddenly, Motorola is facing hundreds of small claims suits. They're still likely to settle them all out of court for the cost of the phone, but perhaps the next time they make a phone someone in the initial design meeting says "Ya know, the fuse function really seemed to piss off a lot of people, people who are now likely buying phones from our competitors. Maybe we shouldn't take that route again."

uddenly, Motorola is facing hundreds of small claims suits. They're still likely to settle them all out of court for the cost of the phone, but perhaps the next time they make a phone someone in the initial design meeting says "Ya know, the fuse function really seemed to piss off a lot of people, people who are now likely buying phones from our competitors. Maybe we shouldn't take that route again."

No.

They are likely to petition to have all these Small Claims rolled up into a Class Action suit (or some intrepid lawyer will, hoping to cash in on money they will make by battling Motorola).

A judge is likely to grant the petition, and then Motorola can let their lawyers into the mix.

Flash forward 5-10 years before the results actually matter (although it always possible Motorola MAY learn from this before then).

You can legally buy a gun that only shoots in the direction of the person pulling the trigger, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I don't like this as much as the next/. reader, but if they put a visible tamper warning on the phone that the owner has to take off or, unfortunately, buries such text in a EULA then it's legally fine. It's unfortunate that there's so much that goes into being an informed consumer these days, but this is a slippery slope. As much as I'd like to say "there should be regulations against this!" there are an equal amount of items that Motorola et al think they should be able to get away with that I think are bad ideas.

Ah... I guess I won't be buying a DroidX then. Sad, really... I was looking forward to getting one when the contract was up on my Droid.

And I've been very happy with my Droid. Now, one wonders...was this done to suit Verizon or if it was on Moto's own thinking that it was done. I might not have modded my phone when I got it, but doing things like this are a real put-off. I bought the phone, it's mine to do with as I see fit- and putting in things like this take that away from me. It turns it into Motorola's device or Verizon's device and I'm just renting it. Sorry, you SOLD me a phone guys and if you're concerned about "user experience" or "risks to the network" design the damn phone to not need to be concerned about EITHER- and anything else is lying to the customer outright.

You can thank Motorola for this gaff, not Verizon.
Motorola Bootloader Lockdown Explained [androidcentral.com]
It seems that, since the Droid X is using part of Motorola's code along with the Android OS, they did not want that open. Part of protecting their IP I suppose.

I did follow the TFA to the origin of the story (MyDroidWorld [mydroidworld.com] forum), and I still don't see any code, captured data or even a photo of the said eFuse chip inside the DroidX. I understand that the original poster appears to be a reputable hacker, but come on, what kind of real reporting is this? Can anyone else verify these claims? More information needed, thank you very much whoever posts it, because if true, this is an outrage.

We understand there is a community of developers interested in going beyond Android application development and experimenting with Android system development and re-flashing phones. For these developers, we highly recommend obtaining either a Google ADP1 developer phone or a Nexus One, both of which are intended for these purposes. At this time, Motorola Android-based handsets are intended for use by consumers and Android application developers, and we have currently chosen not to go into the business of providing fully unlocked developer phones.

The use of open source software, such as the Linux kernel or the Android platform, in a consumer device does not require the handset running such software to be open for re-flashing. We comply with the licenses, including GPLv2, for each of the open source packages in our handsets. We post appropriate notices as part of the legal information on the handset and post source code, where required, at http://opensource.motorola.com./ [opensource.motorola.com] Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years. This practice is driven by a number of different business factors. When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so. We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration.

A locked-down bootloader is not uncommon on Android devices these days. That the Droid X bootloader is locked by no means demonstrates the ridiculous measures that the article claims Motorola have implimented.

I am sorry but I do not see that Motorola acknowledged the use of eFuse technology. Yes, they locked the bootloader down just like they did with the Milestone (using encryption). Other than that it is pure speculation. Show me the pictures or show me a bricked phone and then we talk.

The use of open source software, such as the Linux kernel or the Android platform, in a consumer device does not require the handset running such software to be open for re-flashing. We comply with the licenses, including GPLv2, for each of the open source packages in our handsets.

(my emphasis)

This is exactly the sort of thing GPLv3 was intended to circumvent. Whether that's because the FSF foresaw a future where there were so many locked down devices that most people simply wouldn't buy a general purpose PC any more or because they simply thought it was a bit disingenuous to provide source but no way of running the compiled code is another matter altogether.

I'm under the impression that the Droid X is intended for the business market, to try to take a bite out of RIM's market share. This sounds like an attempt to make the phone more "secure" by preventing people from getting at the data by rooting the phone. Not that it's necessarily the best way, but thats just my 2 cents.

"Written in JTAG" implies a program written in a language called JTAG.

The problem is that JTAG is a standardized electrical communications protocol used to support debugging of ICs, and often also used to program them.

Nothing can be "written in JTAG" because it isn't a programming language. I question whether the poster on that forum has any clue what's really going on. So far the only evidence of this is one forum post that has very little detail and has some glaring technical/grammatical errors (see above). I'll believe it when I see a more in-depth analysis.

Reading comprehension is not your strength is it? 1) p3droid admitted right from the start that it was all guess work but somehow everybody ran with it and concluded that there should be "shame on Motorola" etc, 2) Motorola admitted to locking down the bootloader but not to bricking the phone in case an attempt to replace the bootloader was made. Btw, reports came in that the Droid X does not get bricked when trying to fiddle with the bootloader.

Is all the GPL code in Android under such a version of GPL, that this is legal? I mean, it prevents the user from changing certain parts of the GPL software, something which at least some versions of GPL require, as far as I understand.

While I love a good ragefest, wouldn't it be prudent to check the facts?

Droid, DroidX, Droid2 and others -- they all have this efuse, it's nothing new. Perhaps rather than making assumptions based on the presence of a device, someone could do some actual research to find out if this is really a concern? Just because the chip is present does not mean it's configured to brick the phone - it certainly hasn't done so in other Android devices using it.

In past days this would be properly seen as a hardware quirk to be worked around. Like a buggy SCSI controller which trashes your disks when you hit it with an obscure command sequence. You don't throw up your hands, foam at the mouth, and threaten the manufacturer! You figure out what you need to do to avoid the undesirable behavior.

My God, you modder people are turning into a bunch of pussies and whiners. THE WHOLE POINT OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING is to have fun and push the hardware into areas it was not meant to go. In this case, the manufacturers have laid a few things in your path to make life interesting. Take it as a challenge, as we've always done in the past, rather than acting like a whiny bitch. My God, the hacker spirit is well and truly dead.

In this case it's more a case of "Motorola Evil". Google provides the OS but the manufacturer still integrates it into the device.

My next upgrades isn't until December, but I can already say that Droid X is off the table. Hopefully HTC will have out something new and shiny by then. If not, I'll still go for the Incredible over the X. I've had nothing but trouble from Motorola phones anyways.

is that Verizon will be the first one out of the gate with Block C 700MHz LTE service -- which will put them on the spot: they are *required by the terms of the license* -- thanks, Google -- to allow any device that meets their published tech specs to connect to that network.

So if the do this to their handsets for LTE700, then they'll just lose sales *directly*.

Well, it's more of a Motorola issue than an Android issue. Just because an operating system is open doesn't mean the corporation that installed it isn't going to be a jackass.

It's not as if there's no precedent for this. There's a certain operating system based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU, and KDE, which is somewhat infamous for being closed [apple.com]. At least you can load and run your own programs onto the Droid X, even if you can't update the operating system to your own version.

There's also another OS that is based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU and KDE which allows me to install whatever I want without having to jailbreak, root, break bootloaders, etc...Clicky [apple.com]

To be fair, OS X doesn't implode if you recompile the bootloader, which is open source under Darwin. You can either download apps for OS X (many free), make your own using Apple-supplied tools (XCode), third-party paid tools (why?), or use free-as-in-speech-and-beer OSS tools.

This can be done in any combination of interfaces, from CLI and X11 to Cocoa and Carbon.

None of this, or even (to make an accurate analogy) installing Windows or Linux on your Mac, is going to make the Mac go boom. In fact, if you buy the system and install the exact same Linux distro as you did on your IBM or Compaq... it'd work.

From where I sit, Motorola / Verizon are more evil than Apple / AT&T. Well, OK, AT&T is pretty fucking evil, but the reality is that Apple has never been about open devices and so has never violated any trust with any communities, because iPhone has always been a walled garden. On the other hand Android is wide open, yet they are coupled with Verizon, notorious for locking down phones and removing features, and Motorola who knows fuck all about good software. Android + (Verizon and Motorola) seems like oil and water to me. Plus the Droid-X software seems to not be getting good reviews today: http://gizmodo.com/5587225/motorola-droid-x-review [gizmodo.com] meaning that hacking it is even more desirable.

No, just an excuse to stay away from the Droid X. The Droid line has a number of phones from different manufacturers that make it. The original Droid and Droid X are made by Motorola while the Droid Incredible is made by HTC. Only the Droid X (so far) suffers from this problem that will likely have a way around it soon enough.

eFUSE is a chip technology developed by IBM [ibm.com] is a special type of chip where the code isn't completely static- based on the operation of the device, an eFUSE can blow itself. This can reroute the logic in a variety of ways, or be used as a self destruct mechanism.

It's reversible, but only by Motorola directly via JTAG. They have the custom code needed to flash the chip back to its original state.

I've heard that Cyanogen and other groups that do this sort of technical work on Android phones have sworn off the Droid X because options that are equally good as phones and won't make getting a custom ROM on a process that will destroy several phones and be risky every time someone flashes it themselves exist.

TFA doesn't explain what an "eFuse" is, but if it's anything like an actual fuse, then shorting it should be easy enough.

If you follow the link in the story to here [mydroidworld.com], it says:

The eFuse is coded with information that it either looks for or is passed to it from the bootloader. The bootloader is loaded with information it looks for when it begins the boot-up process. (I have seen the sbf file look for a certain bootloader when it begins so its safe to assume that this is the process).

If they've put eFuse stuff on the phone, you might be able tapdance around the issue a bit- but the odds are good that if you're modding the phone you'll brick it. And it's liable to brick a few un-modded phones as well. There was a reason they quit using it a while back (this stuff is from the early part the last decade...)- and I'm kind of surprised they brought it back on this phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFUSE [wikipedia.org] "By utilizing an eFUSE (or more realistically, a number of individual eFUSEs), a chip manufacturer can allow for the circuits on a chip to change while it is in operation."

I understand how someone can decide not to officially support modding since that could translate into more costs, but actually investing time and money to prevent modding?Seriously, whats wrong with them? They are supposedly part of the Open Handset Alliance.

In reality, the main appeal of Android operating systems is that they give phone manufacturers a serious competitor to Apple and they don't have to pay Microsoft. Not to mention, they probably don't care for Windows Mobile.

The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.

Don't forget that Motorola phones only have a few die-hards working on ROMS. Compare the forum for the CLIQ on modmymoto.com to the ones for HTC devices on xda-developers. The iPhone also has a big jailbreaking/modding scene, and I'm sure there will be a bunch of cool apps on Cydia once iOS 4.1 comes out and is jailbroken.

If I were to buy an Android phone, I'd go with an N1, or the "official" Google stuff. Second choice will be almost any HTC device because they actually put out source and tools to help with modding.

eFUSE can be used to change chip logic on the fly based on the operation,, or, as Motorola is using, can be used to modify the programming of the chip itself to render the device nonfunctional without a reflash.

If you could figure out the necessary code to flash to the chip - which wouldn't be easy - yeah, you could reflash the chip via the JTAG port.

Given that HTC and others aren't locking the phones down in a method where the phone deliberately tries to use a device to brick if the phone's firmware/kernel/bootloader is not official, crackers are more likely to ignore the phone. And given the publicity ("Motorola phones have chip that self destructs"), ordinary consumers could be scared off too.